Brazil earmarks $4 million in credit for refugee assistance
Syrian refugee Hanaa Nachawaty and her family sell sfiha in Rio. 
The Brazilian government is to put $4 million towards strengthening policies to assist refugees and immigrants in the country. The details on the special credit offer can be found on Friday's (Oct. 9) Official Gazette. The funds will serve to improve the country's network of shelters and provide beneficiaries with better legal, social, and psychological advice, apart from Portuguese language classes and strategies aimed at helping them enter the labor market. The figure is nearly twice as high as the budget for the National Secretariat for Justice, whose responsibilities include such initiatives, which have cost $2 million this year so far.
Beto Vasconcelos, National Secretary for Justice and chairman of the National Committee for Refugees (Conare), justified the government's decision by saying, “We're facing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II […]. The entire world has sought innovative solutions. The international community has been looking for ways to tackle the human drama we're experiencing. Brazil has been cooperating.”
The resources, he said, will be put to use by means of partnership initiatives with the government at state and municipal levels and through governmental agencies, civil organizations, and international associations.
Vasconcelos added that the official number of refugees in the country reaches 8,530, of whom 2,097 are Syrian, 1,480 Angolan, 1,097 Colombian, and some 850 Congolese, and that these people usually settle in the South and Southeast of Brazil. States in the North—most notably Acre—have also reported refugee entries.
All across the world, 60 million people have had to leave their homes and 20 million were forced out of their country dye to armed conflicts or persecution based on race, religion, social factors, political opinion or nationality.
Translated by Fabrício Ferreira
Fonte: Brazil earmarks $4 million in credit for refugee assistance
